Pre- Production - Screenwriting Research - Realism and the ROADMAN

In my script, I want to hit home the realism aspect of my script. I want it to feel real, the characters you are portraying are a real life interpretation of an urban life. I find it the utmost importance to achieve this. I've researched into the ROADMAN. A subculture in britain that is thriving.

Definition of a roadman, based on the 'trustworthy' urbandictionary

Roadman comes from the 21st century slang word, describing a boy (normally at a teenage age) as someone who thoroughly knows the ins and outs of his area, and the people in the area - he will also be involved in popular events such as trapping, driving (cruising), parties etc.

Or another great one

typical teenage boys who drop out of school and instead do these things:
Smokes weed
wears tracksuit bottoms with bomber jacket
rides around the area on bikes
commit crimes (robbery in particular)
shows aggressive and intimidating behavior

lives on benefits
acts tough/ hard *slang for tough*
Chill in shady areas on in front of fast food restaurants

*note if you want to be a roadman you must do most/all of the things above* 

 Although this is a parody and very overblown, this can be a likely source of the roadman culture!

 

Relating this back to the script, we can build up a schematic if you like around what a roadman is, and build out characters around this life.

Another point is slang. Slang plays a massive part in the roadman lifestyle. Communication is key if we are going to pull off. 'Cuz, bruv, man' buzz words like this is what they refer to each other as.


The grime scene is also full of the 'ROADMAN' culture. Hoodies, drugs, darker ethnicity, standard car park, rapping. its all here!






So now we have an idea of what to expect in terms of speech, dress code. We can start to build our scriptwriting.